Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who has just declared Trump ineligible for the Maine** primary, was prompted by a liberal group invoking the Maine Election Act Questioning Trump's candidacy, Bellows came to the conclusion after hearing from a variety of sources, procedurally speaking, Bellows, as secretary of state responsible for overseeing the state's elections, has the right to do so, but in the absence of the Supreme Court or the state courts, and other state secretaries of state are afraid to avoid it, Bellows' move cannot but raise doubts about the motive behind it.
Secretary of State Bellows, a Democrat, spent eight years at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which provides legal aid to groups such as LGBTQ, and was a strong advocate for same-sex marriage laws in Maine, before losing her run for the U.S. Senate in 2014 to incumbent Susan Collins (R-ME) and then serving as a state senator and being elected secretary of state in 2020.
It is precisely because of Bellows' previous leftist record that Republicans have previously asked Bellows to recuse himself from Trump on the grounds that he has a pre-position that "Congress will be held on January 6" The next step is for the Trump team to appeal to the Maine Superior Court (the highest non-state level), because Maine law requires a judgment within 20 days, which means that the state superior court will consider whether Trump has the qualifications of a candidate before January 17.
The time is expected to be accelerated because federal law requires state offices to send ballots to overseas voters 45 days in advance, and Maine's Republican primary is also on "Super Tuesday" (March 5), so Maine must complete the production of ballots in January, and there is not much time left for the state superior court to see if Trump's name appears on the ballot.
Although Maine only disqualified Trump from the Republican primary, if things are allowed to ferment, it will deal a heavy blow to Trump, Maine and Colorado are both inclined to the Democrats, but based on Colorado's past data (detailed above), Trump even enters ** In the runoff, the probability of winning the Electoral College vote in Colorado is extremely low, but Maine is different, and if Trump is further disqualified from the runoff, it is very likely to lose the Electoral College vote that belongs to him, because Maine is the only state in the United States that does not conduct the ** election according to the "winner-takes-all" principle.
Maine has only two U.S. House seats, both of which are held by Democrats (Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden), and the governor's seat has also been held by Democrats since 2018, with the current governor being Janet Mills (D), the state Senate (22-13) and the state House of Representatives (80-68) also controlled by Democrats, but the U.S. Senator is the Republican "swingman" Susan Collins (R-ME) possession, the other is Angus King (i-ME), one of the three quasi-Democrats in Congress.
While Maine as a whole is skewed in favor of the Democrats, and Republicans have not won in Maine since 1988***, Trump won the Electoral College votes for the second congressional district in 2016 and 2020 (four in the state) due to the state's "no winner-takes-all" principle, considering that Trump won 51 here in 20206 ：45.5% defeated Biden, and it is expected that Trump will still have a high probability of winning the Electoral College vote in 2024, but if Trump is disqualified, then Biden will win without a fight, and it will be unbearable for Trump.
The strip of Trump** candidacy in Maine is the second state after Colorado, which also shows that the "Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution" around Trump is spreading, the figure below is the state where Trump is involved in such cases, the purple states that have been stripped of Trump** candidacy have increased to two, and there are more than a dozen states (yellow, etc.) to be decided, if you want to stop this spread, the Supreme Court will become the key.
Republicans in Colorado have filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear whether Trump violated the Fourteenth Amendment, and because of the Republican move, Trump will temporarily retain his candidacy until the Colorado primary (March 5) pending a further decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
For the Republican Party, Trump's candidacy must be defended because if Trump's actions on January 6 are characterized as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the blow will never be limited to Trump. New Mexico's county commissioner was ousted by a court last year because he traveled to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, and before last year's midterm elections, liberal groups cited the Fourteenth Amendment to ask the court to strip the incumbent U.S. Rep. Trump's hardcore Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) from his candidacy.
Scott Perry (R-PA-14), the leader of the conservative Republican wing of the House of Representatives and chairman of the "Liberal Caucus" (until January), had been in close communication with the Trump cabinet during CongressThe Republican Party's sharp blade, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan (R-OH-4), has publicly endorsed Trump on several occasionsArizona federal candidate Kari Lake's "Democratic Election Fraud Round" is highly aligned with Trump......
It is precisely because countless Republicans have a close or distant relationship with the "January 6 Congress" that if Trump is disqualified from running for the 14th Amendment, then the Democratic Party will inevitably use the same clause to encircle and suppress many core figures of the Republican Party, and the Republican Party will suffer a catastrophe, so such cases are not only very important to Trump, but also a "test of life and death" for the Republican Party.